ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF NATURAL GAS

BURNING AND PHOTOVOLTAIC ELECTRICITY

J. Cristóbal*, J. Albo, A. Dominguez-Ramos, A. Irabien

Universidad de Cantabria, Ingeniería Química y Química Inorgánica,

Avda. de los Castros s/n. ES-39005 Santander, Spain, E-mail: cristobalj@unican.es

1. Introducción

Since climate change and abiotic resources depletion is a growing concern nowadays,
an environmental sustainability assessment must be done comparing different energy
fuel-cycles (conventional and renewable). The sustainability metrics and the boundaries
of the system would be crucial for the correct comparison of such different
technologies. Furthermore, environmental burdens must be assessed taking into account
not only global warming pollutants but all pollutants that contribute to global and local
impacts with regard to time and space for the assessment [1].

In figure 1 is shown the approach used for the life cycle assessment. On the one hand
for a fossil fuel-cycle two different parts can be described. One is the fuel cycle that is
proportional to the energy produced and would be the main contributor to the resource
consumption and the environmental burdens. And the other is the infrastructure-cycle
which contribution is punctual during the lifetime of the plant. On the other hand for a
renewable energy just the infrastructure-cycle exists, so the lifetime of the plant would
play an important role in the correct interpretation of the data.
It is a cradle to gate study so distribution, use and disposal of the energy produced is the
same for both technologies.

Figure 1: Life Cycle approach

It is important to study the life cycle of different alternatives to electricity generation to

achieve the goal defined in the European Conference for Renewable Energy in 2004
that seeks to obtain 20% of the EU energy consumption from renewable sources by
2020 and the reduction of the 20% of the CO2 emissions.
Power generation from photovoltaic panels (Phv) is called to be one of the most
important future technologies due to the potential energy contained in the sun and the
clean performance during its use phase. But some disadvantages appear when the whole
life cycle is assessed: construction of the panels and the installation consume big
amounts of energy and emit pollutants that must be considered in the lifetime of the
plant; land occupied is one of the arguments used to criticise photovoltaic electricity.

This renewable energy is compared to natural gas (NG) that is one of the most
important contributors to the world energy mix accounting 20.9% in 2007 being the
production of electricity 4127 Twh. It offers many advantages compared with other
fossil fuels: energy efficiency, ease to use and relatively low greenhouse signature [2].

The comparison would be carried out through a life cycle assessment and as key
indicators the sustainability metrics proposed by IChemE [3] that evaluate sustainability
performance taking into account environmental burdens (from the emissions to the
atmosphere, water and land) and natural resources.

2. Methodology

This study is focused on the environmental sustainability assessment of two energy

generation technologies: on the one hand natural gas burned in a thermoelectric plant
and on the other hand through photovoltaic panels. The assessment was done
considering the whole life cycle of the electric energy production process and according
ISO 14040 [4]. As this procedure suggests the LCA is carried out in four phases being
the first one the definition of the goal and the scope.

2.1 Goal and scope

The scope of this study is to compare from the environmental point of view which fuel-
cycle is more sustainable when producing electricity, so the functional unit would be the
production of 1 Kwh.

As two very different technologies want to be compared the system boundaries get a
relevant importance and must be right settled to avoid losses of information about the
environmental impacts in the different phases of the life cycle.

• In the case of NG in the life cycle are included: upstream processes (that
includes exploration and production of the NG, transport to the power plant
including the construction of the pipeline), construction of the power plant,
combustion at plant and the disposal of waste from the cooling tower.
• For the Phv the processes included are: the photovoltaic panel fabrication (that
includes the extraction and manufacturing of raw materials and the construction
of the fabric), the components fabrication (including the manufacture of all the
products necessary to the operation of the panel such as the inverter, the electric
installation and the construction of the structure), the transport (of all materials),
the use and maintenance of the plant during the life time and the wastewater
disposal from the use.
Figure 2: System boundaries for the LCA

Excluded of the system boundaries in both cases are the distribution and use phase of
the energy because it is considered just until the electricity production. The dismantling
of the plant and the disposal of the materials are not considered because of the lack of
data.

2.2 Life Cycle Inventory (LCI)

SimaPro 7.2® software was used as LCA tool and the Ecoinvent [5] as the database for
the inverntory. Data refers to the Spanish context in the year 2000. Average installation
technology for the NG plant (100MW) with an efficiency of 47%.

Phv inventory was only provided for Swiss plants so a correction of the yield data was
done using 1282 kwh/kwp as the annual production for Spain. 3kp flat roof single-Si
installation was used with an efficiency of 15.3 kwp/m2 [5]. Other correction was
needed to asses the land use of Phv; Ecoinvent does not count a surplus land occupation
because Phv plants are located on existing buildings but in this study an open-ground
plant was modelled so an estimation of this land occupation was needed.

2.3 Life Cycle Impact Assessment

Here different indexes are proposed for the environmental sustainability assessment
based on the environmental indicators of IChemE sustainable development progress
metrics that are divided in Natural Resource Sustainability (NRS) and Environmental
Burden Sustainability (EBS). A multiobjective analysis would be carried out so the step
of weighting proposed by ISO would not be done in this study. In previous studies just
the EBS were taken into account so this study will be centred in the methodology to
assess natural resource consumption following the structure proposed: Energy, material,
water and land.

The 4th phase described by ISO called interpretation would be discussed in the
conclusions.
 3. Results

3.1 Natural Resource Sustainability

3.1.1 Energy, materials and water

Compare the energy consumption of a conventional energy with a renewable is difficult

because most of the indexes depend on the technology. Some authors compare different
renewable technologies through the efficiency of electricity generation [6] saying that
some of them are comparable to coal and natural gas but to compare with a non-
renewable source other index is needed.

The metric used in this paper is the Net Effiency Ratio (NER) that can be defined as the
ratio of the life cycle energy output to the life cycle primary non-renewable energy input
[7]. For conventional energies it would be less than the unit but for a renewable energy
the value would be higher than the unit computing the amount of renewable energy
obtained through the consumption of non-renewable energy.

In order to obtain this data the Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) is calculated by the
method described in Ecoinvent [5], stating the entire demand for the life cycle processes
valued as primary energy [8] and just considering the non renewable energy.

Table 1: Comparison of Net Energy Ratios

Net Energy Ratio NG Phv
Non renewable 0,41 4,41
Fossil 0,412 5,63

NER just considering fossil fuels is calculated because these counts up to 99% in the
NG and 78% (of the non renewable) in the Phv. Results of the net energy ratios can be
followed in the table 1 showing that in the case of fossil fuels primary energy Phv is 14
times more efficient than NG and counting all non-renewables 10 times:
1,4

1,2
Fossil energy efficiency

0,8
Ng
Phv
0,6

0,4

0,2

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time (years)

Figure 3: Fossil Net Energy Ratio along time

It is important to consider the temporal scale when comparing a renewable and a
conventional fuel-cycle. In figure 3 is shown the net energy ratio of fossil fuels in both
technologies along time being constant for NG and increasing for Phv.

Furthermore, the distribution of the energy consumption during both life cycles is
different; in NG the processes that demand more energy are the upstream and the use
phase (combustion at plant) that are continuous during the lifetime of the plant while in
Phv the fabrication of the panels and components, the installation and the transport
require more than the 99% of the energy demand and occur in the beginning of the life
cycle (punctual in the time) being the use and maintenance negligible. This permit
obtain the Energy pay-back time (EPBT) that is the time required to generate the
equivalent amount of energy consumed in the construction phase [9]. This index for
conventional fuel-cycle does no make much sense because the construction phase does
not require much energy and the EPBT is really small. Also the Energy Returns Factor
(ERF) can be obtained representing how many times the plant pays back the energy
needed for its production [10].

In this case the EPBT for Phv is 2.29 years, using the thermoelectric efficiency of the
Spanish electric mix in 2000. The ERF is 13.1 assuming an expected lifetime of the
panels equal to 30 years [5].

Consumption of raw material and water are negligible comparing to the consumption of
fossil fuels so they were not evaluated in this study.

3.1.2. Land use

One of the critic points when comparing a renewable energy with a conventional one is
the big amount of land required for the former to produce the same amount of energy. In
this study is proposed two different measures provided by the Ecoinvent: land
transformation and land occupation.

Land transformation is measured in m2 indicating the area of land altered from a

reference state while land occupation (measured in m2xyear) denotes the area of land
occupied and the duration of the occupation [11].
The transformation of the land in the natural gas fuel cycle comes from the upstream
processes (92%) while the plant and the pipeline construction count 1% and 6%
respectively. The combustion and disposal phase are negligible. The land transformed
for the production of 1 Kwh is 0.000101 m2/Kwh (101.79 m2/Gwh)

For the solar energy estimation was made from the Ecoinvent database because it does
no take into account the land transformation in the use phase of the solar panels because
all data refers to roof-top plants installed on existing buildings. The use and
maintenance phase count up to 69% of the final value and the construction of the panels
and rest of components count 21 % and 9% respectively. Transport just counts 0.6%
and disposal is negligible. The amount of square meters transformed is 0.000245
m2/Kwh (244.918 m2/Gwh)

Land occupation involves the duration over which the area of the transformed land
returns to its original state. In this study the restoration of ecosystem previous to the
transformation was no taken into account so as the duration will be taken the life time of
the infrastructures until land would start to restore its primary use. In the case of
photovoltaic panels the life time is considered 30 years and natural gas to simplify the
analysis around 5 years (taking into account that the plant construction – 20 year; and
pipeline construction – 40 years)
Land occupation for renewable-energy sources is interchangeable between area and
time [11]. As we can see in the figure 4 representing the land occupation for both
energy sources, the production of the same quantity of energy through photovoltaic
panels requires approximately 15 times the area of natural gas during the same time of
occupation being for Photovoltaic 0.0074 m2xyear/Kwh and for Natural gas 0.00048
m2xyear/Kwh.

10000

1000
Time (years)

100 NG
Phv

10

1
1 10 100 1000 10000 100000
Area (m 2)

Fig 4: Land occupation (for 1 Gwh)

3.2 Environmental Burden Sustainability

Normalization procedures based on the environmental burdens given by IChemE are

used on the substance emissions to calculate the indexes proposed in this study. EBS is
divided in three categories: atmospheric impacts, aquatic impacts and impacts to land;
in this study just the emissions to the atmosphere are evaluated because the total amount
of pollutants to water and land was negligible [12].

3.2.1 Atmospheric impacts

Atmospheric impacts must be divided between global and local impacts, and the
normalization procedure would be different. For the former each emitted substances
would be weighted by a potency factor (PF) that transform the emission to a reference
substance and divided by the annual threshold (Th) of the reference substance
established in the Annex II of the E-PRTR Regulation [13]. So first global impacts
would be analysed.

It is clear that global impact does not depend on the spatial or temporal dimension
differing to local impacts. So a total value of the index can be compared for both
technologies.
 Table 2: Global Atmospheric Impacts
Emision Ton/Twh Normalized EB
Refer. Th
NG Phv NG Phv
Substance Subst. PF (T/y)
Sulfur dioxide 30,01 157,06 1 150 0,2 1,05
Nitrogen oxides 554,88 108,18 0,7 150 2,59 0,5
Hydrogen chloride 0,3 2,16 0,88 150 1,78E-03 1,27E-02
AA

Hydrogen fluoride Sulfur 6,45E-02 0,8 1,6 150 6,88E-04 8,52E-03

Ammonia Dioxide 0,24 3,1 1,88 150 3,03E-03 3,88E-02
TOTAL SO2 eq. 419,25 241,78 1 150 2,8 1,61
CO2 (fossil+biogenic) 5,00E+05 4,52E+04 1 100000 5 0,45
Nitrogen oxides 554,88 108,18 40 100000 0,22 4,33E-02
Dinitrogen monoxide 8,53 1,79 310 100000 2,64E-02 5,55E-03
CO (fossil+biogenic) 188,87 120,97 3 100000 5,67E-03 3,63E-03
GW

CH4 (fossil+biogenic) 500,36 113,01 21 100000 0,11 2,37E-02

NMVOC Carbon 32,54 50,21 11 100000 3,58E-03 5,52E-03
CH4, Cl2F-, HCFC-22 dioxide 3,51E-02 5,36E-02 1700 100000 5,97E-04 9,11E-04
TOTAL CO2 eq. 5,36E+05 4,92E+04 1 100000 5,36 0,53
CH4, 4Cl, CFC-10 2,89E-05 2,05E-03 1,1 0,001 3,18E-02 2,26
CH4, Br3F, Halon 1301 3,38E-05 1,04E-04 10 0,001 0,34 1,04
CH4, BrCl2F, Halon 1211 1,13E-02 3,23E-04 3 0,001 34,03 0,97
Ethane, 2Cl4F, CFC114 3,75E-05 2,29E-04 1 0,001 3,75E-02 0,23
OD

CH4, Cl2F, HCFC-22 3,51E-02 5,36E-02 0,055 0,001 1,93 2,95

CH4, 2Cl2F, CFC-12 1,29E-06 1,28E-03 1 0,001 1,29E-03 1,28
CH4, 3ClF, CFC-11 CFC11 1,41E-10 1,70E-05 1 0,001 1,41E-07 1,70E-02
TOTAL CFC11eq 3,64E-02 8,74E-03 1 0,001 36,37 8,74
TOTAL 44,52 10,88
AA: Atmospheric Acidification; GW: Global Warming ; OD: Ozone Depletion

As we can see in figure 5 the total index for NG is four times the Phv. In NG, upstream
processes have a relevant influence in the final result increasing the index of the
combustion process by 86%. This is due to emissions counted as methane during the
production and transport to the power plant (emissions and leakages). The 99.99% of
the global impacts for Phv depends on the processes of the manufacture, transport and
installation of the solar panels; so the biggest impact is done at the beginning of the life
cycle and during the use of the solar cells, global emissions and impacts are negligible.

Fig 5: EBS – global impacts

Comparing to other studies this one introduce an important variation that is the
complete analysis of the global impacts not just the GWP (CO2 eq.). As we can see, OD
and AA are important for the final comparison because the inclusion of these two
categories reduces the ratio EB-NG/EB-Phv from 11 when CO2 eq is compared to 4
when the total index is compared. This is due to the inclusion of other substances that
appears in both life cycles (Methane emissions in the upstream processes in Ng and in
the panel fabrication in Phv).

Table 3: Main contributors to local impacts

Th
Substance Substance
(ton/year)
Particulates, < 2.5 um 50
Particulates, > 2.5 um, and < 10um 50
Chromium 0,1
Arsenic 0,02
Mercury 0,01
HHE

Lead 0,2
Cadmium 0,01
Benzene 1
Nickel 0,05
Zinc 0,2
Copper 0,1
Sulfur dioxide 150
POF

Nitrogen oxides 100

Benzene 1
HHE: Human Health Effect; POF: Photochemical Ozone Formation

In previous studies a different normalized procedure for local impacts was used based
on the emissions of the substance divided by the threshold of this substance established
in the Annex II of the E-PRTR Regulation [13]. In table 3 are the main substances that
contribute to the local impact index and the threshold of each substance.

It is not possible to compare two total indexes for local impacts because they depend on
the spatial and temporal scale. Each process occurs in a different place so it is more
accurate to show every process independently.
16

14

12
Index value

10

0
combustion upstream construction transport components panels

NG Phv
Technology/process

Fig 6: Local impact index

In both cases values for disposal (waste and wastewater) were negligible. In figure 6 are
showed the values for the main processes in the life cycle of each technology. High
values in the fabrication of components are due to the emissions of heavy metals (As,
Cd, Ni and Cu). In the fabrication of the solar panels NOx, SO2 and heavy metals (Pb,
As and Ni). For the NG combustion process the emission of NOx, being in the highest
rate formed because of the temperature - called thermal NOx, that contribute to the
photochemical ozone formation is the main contributor to local impact burden.

4. Conclusions

Different indexes were proposed to compare such two different electricity generation
technologies in terms of natural resources and environmental burdens sustainability.

The most important results are the higher efficiency of Phv in non renewable energy and
in the temporal scale it is shown that after the second year Phv is more efficient than
NG in the use of fossil fuels. But the land occupation relating the spatial and temporal
scale shows that for the same amount of energy Phv needs about 15 times the area
occupied by natural gas during the same time of occupation.

The process of combustion in NG is the main contributor to GW but when comparing

the total global impacts, upstream processes get relevance because of the methane
emissions that contributes mainly to the OD. So limit the study to the CO2 equivalent
emissions would hide the contributions of other pollutants to global impacts being more
important in the case of Phv because CO2 eq. are a very small contribution when
comparing to the total.

In previous studies it was discussed if HHE and POF should be better treated as social
than environmental indexes for its relation to population vulnerability, but what is clear
is that its results must be treated as local impacts and that different process inside a life
cycle must be analysed separately attending the spatial and temporal scale. In this study
is shown that the production of the components and the production of the photovoltaic
panels have a local index higher than the combustion of the NG. In further studies it
should be analysed which part of this contribution depends on the extraction of the
minerals and which to the production in plant of components and panels so that they are
located in different places.

5. Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (Project
C-CTM2006-00317).

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